Study: Cocaine Use Up, But More Youth Saying No

OTHER NEWS TO NOTE - WASHINGTON

December 19, 1991

After three years of the Bush administration's war against drugs, cocaine use increased this year and drug-related visits to hospital emergency rooms jumped, according to studies made available Wednesday.

Administration drug policy officials pointed to some good news in the statistics, however: Younger people seem to be turning against drugs, so the drug-use figures should decline in the future.

''The problem seems to be collapsing into groups within our society who can least afford the problems caused by their addiction: older and inner-city addicts,'' said Bob Martinez, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

The Household Survey on Drug Abuse for 1991 and data for the second quarter of the year from the Drug Abuse Warning Network of hospital emergency rooms are to be released formally today.

Drug-related emergency room visits rose to about 173,200 in the second quarter of this year, compared with 159,600 the previous year.

Overall, the household survey found that current use of any illicit drug - at least once in the previous month - has fallen steadily, from 14.5 million in 1988 to 12.6 million this year.

For cocaine, however, past-month use rose from 1.6 million last year to 1.9 million this year.

The overwhelming bulk of the increase this year was among people age 35 and older, while monthly cocaine use among people age 12 through 34 has dropped steadily from 2.5 million in 1988 to 1.37 million this year.